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| Baby Daniel |
On Tuesday, the 18th of
September, 2012, a beautiful baby boy was born into the sober quiet of an Illinois hospital room.
We knew, before he was born, that he was dead – he had been dead three days; we
never found out how. But it is not the how that is the most desperate question
for the family members: it is the why that kills you. Why would God take such a
badly-wanted child from the loving and expectant arms of his mother, father,
three sisters, and five brothers? So much love would have encased and blessed
his life, bearing him on a cloud of care and laughter; instead, his deprivation
led to many months of heartbroken tears.
As we gathered about the hospital bed to hold our new baby brother for the first and last time, not one of us in the room doubted that he was being held in the warm and maternally loving arms of the Blessed Mother. We knew very little of the Church’s teachings on un-baptized infants, but we knew much of the unfailing Mercy of Jesus Christ and trusted in it wholeheartedly.
I had just begun classes at the
Naturally enough, I reacted
extremely emotionally to these discoveries, lashing out at my teacher, and
vehemently defending Jesus’ mercy to the friends who already agreed with me. I did not
care about objective truth, I cared about my baby brother.
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| Daniel with his brothers and sisters. That's me in the middle, holding him. |
Since then, I have gradually been
more and more able to listen with an objective mind to the theories that
Catholics put forward regarding the fate of un-baptized infants. At least, I
don’t yell at them.
Unfortunately, the Church is
unclear in her definite teachings, and the theories regarding this topic are
varied and even, sometimes, completely opposite. The lack of a dogmatic
definition is saddening and has led to various schools of thought amongst
Catholics: schools of thought wherein one group often refers to another as ‘heretical’.
It is a topic that has not only been hotly debated by Catholics since the
beginning of the Church, but one on which the Church herself has seemed to
change her teachings on multiple occasions.
Augustine says infants experience
hell-fire, Thomas Aquinas claims they experience no pain, but only separation
from the beatific vision, and John Paul II has recently declared that they may
even experience heaven. Some claim infants are in Limbo, some claim Limbo is a
heresy. We can not even turn to the decrees of the popes for clarification, for
the popes, throughout the years, have said many different things, and never
under a doctrinal decree. What is a Catholic, one who is seeking the truth of
Christ objectively, – in disregard to his personal feelings about lost loved
ones – to believe?
(To be clear, I do
not know the truth of this matter, and if at any point I seem to be supporting
one theory or another, it is only because I am allowing it weight, attempting
to examine every aspect of every argument. I have personal preferences for what
I wish were true, but I do not think my feelings are sufficient proof for the
validity of an argument.)
NewAdvent, a catholic online
encyclopedia, discusses Baptism of Desire, stating, “it is to be noted that
only adults are capable of receiving the baptism of desire.” In another section,
it discusses un-baptized infants specifically, declaring,
“The Catholic teaching is
uncompromising on this point, that all who depart this life without
baptism, be it of water, or blood, or desire, are perpetually excluded from the
vision of God....Moreover, that those who die in original sin, without ever
having contracted any actual sin, are deprived of the happiness of heaven is
stated explicitly in the Confession of Faith of the Eastern Emperor
Michael Palæologus, which had been proposed to him by Pope Clement IV in
1267, and which he accepted in the presence of Gregory X at the Second
Council of Lyons in 1274. The same doctrine is found also in the
Decree of Union of the Greeks, in the Bull "Lætentur Caeli"
of Pope Eugene IV, in the Profession of Faith prescribed for
the Greeks by Pope Gregory XIII, and in that authorized for
the Orientals by Urban VIII and Benedict XIV. Many Catholic theologians have declared that infants dying without
baptism are excluded from the beatific vision; but as to the exact state of
these souls in the next world they are not agreed.” (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02258b.htm# vii; emphasis mine)
“In speaking of souls who have
failed to attain salvation, these theologians distinguish the pain of loss
(paena damni), or privation of the beatific vision, and the pain of sense
(paena sensus). Though these theologians have thought it certain that
unbaptized infants must endure the pain of loss, they have not been similarly certain that
they are subject to the pain of sense....Since the twelfth century, the opinion
of the majority of theologians has been that unbaptized infants are immune
from all pain of sense. This was taught by St. Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, St.
Bonaventure, Peter Lombard, and others, and is now the common teaching in the
schools. It accords with the wording of a decree of Pope Innocent III (III
Decr., xlii, 3): "The punishment of original sin is the deprivation
of the vision of God; of actual sin, the eternal pains of hell."
Infants, of course, can not be guilty of actual sin.... Many, following
St. Thomas (De Malo, Q. v, a. 3), declare that these infants are not
saddened by the loss of the beatific vision, either because they have no
knowledge of it, and hence are not sensible of their privation; or
because, knowing it, their will is entirely conformed to God’s will and
they are concious that they have missed an undue priviledge through
no fault of their own.”(Ibid)
If it is the case that my infant brother is deprived of the
Beatific Vision, then it is Thomas Aquinas’ theory that I would hope were true.
For I would hope that my brother was happy in existing in accord with the will
of God.
"Again (a. 2) he [Aquinas] says:
"They will rejoice in this, that they will share largely in the divine
goodness and in natural perfections." While the opinion, then, that
unbaptized infants may enjoy a natural knowledge and love of God and
rejoice in it, is perfectly tenable, it has not the certainty that would
arise from a unanimous consent of the Fathers of the Church, or from a
favorable pronouncement of ecclesiastical authority.” (Ibid)
It would appear that recent
scholastic thought has shifted from the views maintained in the article by
NewAdvent, toward a more liberal view that hopes for salvation for all souls. In
a recent document written by the International Theological Commission, and
published by the Vatican under the name The
Hope of Salvation for Infants Who Die Without Being Baptized, the
Commission acknowledges the pain experienced by parents in relation to their
un-baptized dead child,
“Parents experience great grief and
feelings of guilt when they do not have the moral assurance of the salvation of
their children, and people find it increasingly difficult to accept that God is
just and merciful if he excludes infants, who have no personal sins, from
eternal happiness, whether they are Christian or non-Christian.” (http://www. vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20070419_un-baptised-infants_en.html; intro,
paragraph 2)
The guilt and grief associated
with the death of un-baptized children is nothing new in the situation of
mankind, and did not seem to deter St.
Augustine or many popes in their pronouncements
concerning punishment for these little souls. Truth, unfortunately, does not
always accommodate the feelings of individuals. For example, when a young man
asked Christ if he could wait until his father died in order to follow Him,
Jesus unequivocally told him that he must follow immediately, and must not
worry about the disappointed feelings of his father.
The basis for the Commission’s theory is not based solely on feelings, however, but rather on the hope that all Catholics must have regarding the Mercy and Love of God. “The conclusion of this study is that there are theological and liturgical reasons to hope that infants who die without baptism may be saved and brought into eternal happiness, even if there is not an explicit teaching on this question found in Revelation.” (Ibid; preface) It appears, then, that the current consensus of the
